Put On Your Aviators! Today Is 'Top Gun' Day

Top Gun Day is one of those recently made-up internet holidays. It’s fake. But that’s okay. Fake things make us feel better.

The point of this day is to celebrate the Tom Cruise classic, which makes it a great day to sing the Righteous Brothers, play some sweaty volleyball, and don a shiny pair of aviators. Top Gun Day is the brainchild of Greg Shephard, an online ad salesman who also founded an online Angry Birds fan community, of all things. According to the Radio Times, the date was meant to be May 16 — the movie’s original 1986 release date — but someone screwed up the date on some graphics and Shepherd and company just decided to go with it.

Shephard’s company registered topgunday.com in October of 2008, and the first time the holiday was celebrated was on May 13, 2009. The website looks like it exists mostly to sell merchandise, and it hasn’t even been updated this year.